Contents

Synopsis

Sam and Lady Antonia Bevell are in a bed with white sheets and lit candles surrounding them. Sam is telling her about hunters in the United States and having sex. In the Bunker, Dean is talking to Castiel on the phone about where they should look for Sam. Dean tells Cas to check real estate listings and recent sales. He also asks Cas’ advice about his mother. After telling Dean not to make everything so complicated, Cas hangs up. Mary approaches Dean wearing a Men of Letters robe and slippers. She overheard his conversation. Dean tells her how happy he is that she’s back, but he wants to make sure she has time to adjust. Mary wants to know how she is going to face Sam when they find him, how she is going to look at him when he knows that she started everything with her deal with Azazel.

Sam and Toni are still in bed and Toni asks him if he ever thought any of the American hunters had been compromised. Sam starts getting flashes in his mind, and it turns out he was hallucinating everything. He is still in the chair being tortured by Toni, who had dosed him with a powerful hallucinogen and cast a spell on him, that she cannot do again without liquefying Sam's brain. Toni, instead decides to go a more standard route again, picks up a knife from the table near her and starts torturing Sam with it.

Mary and Dean are at the kitchen table discussing John when Castiel calls. He’s standing in a copse of trees, and he thinks he has found Sam’s location, but he cannot enter because it's heavily warded. He agrees to text Dean the address. Dean argues with Mary about whether she’s coming, an argument he loses.

Lady Bevell wakes Sam up with a bucket of water. She wants to know the names and locations of all the hunters in the United States, and after that she wants to discuss Sam’s relationship with Ruby. She soon is interrupted by a phone call from a man named Mick Davies. He’s found Ms. Watt, dead in her car, and he says that he’s been sent to get her.

Rowena is having dinner with an older, obviously rich gentleman and is telling him about how she’s a star of the Royal Ballet, when Crowley shows up dressed as a waiter to pour her wine. They speak in a stairway. Crowley wants her to help him find Lucifer and throw him back in the cage. Rocker Vince Vincente and his band finish their set, and Vince barricades himself in his dressing room, drinking and staring at a picture of a young woman. He refuses to go out with his band mates. His friend tells him to start living his life and stop moping, because Jen would have wanted him to.

While Mary and Dean drive, they talk about hunting. She was very good at it, but all hunters end up dead. Dean tells her about how when she died, John and Dean were consumed with hunting, but Sam wanted out. He also tells her that he and Sam figured out when John went missing that they only had each other.

Vince Vicente goes back to his hotel room where crazy things start happening. Water turns to blood, lights go on and off, a woman’s voice calls his name, and objects in the room fly around his head. Vince locks himself in his bedroom, and turns around to find Jen in his room. She tells him everything he wants to hear, including that they can be together because she’s an angel. He says yes when she asks him to invite her in. Her eyes flash red.

Rowena is not able to find Lucifer as fast as Crowley wants her to. They argue about how easy it should be to find Lucifer. Finally, she finds a lead. Crowley blackmails Rowena into helping him by threatening her boyfriend, Ben. Meanwhile, Vince’s band mate knocks on his hotel room door to wake him up for rehearsal. After his friend pushes him about going to rehearsal, Lucifer flashes his red eyes and throws the man through the door.

Dean and Mary arrive at the house Cas has located. Dean walks around the house and stumbles upon a sigil in the ground, where he is engulfed in light and disappears. Sam looks up at Lady Bevell, gasping, when she opens the door to the basement. She shoves Dean down the stairs in front of her, telling Sam that while she knows he doesn’t care about her ripping him apart, she doesn’t think he can withstand watching her do it to Dean.

Lucifer barges into the throne room in Crowley's Lair, and sees Crowley, sitting on the throne reading a comic. Crowely tries to reason with him, pushing Lucifer to go back to Heaven and take over up there, leaving Crowley to run Hell. Not interested, Lucifer attempts to strike Crowley down, but Rowena keeps Lucifer from killing Crowley and immobilizes him. With a bottle of sulfuric acid, Crowley doses Lucifer, causing the archangel to scream in agony and anger while his face melts off. Rowena tries to send him back to the Cage, but the spell doesn’t work. She also isn’t able to paralyze him anymore. Lucifer recovers and approaches Crowley, who flees immediately, leaving Rowena behind whom Lucifer takes her prisoner.

Lady Bevell threatens Dean with severe torture. Her plan is interrupted by Mary’s entrance with a gun. Mary gives Dean the keys to his cuffs, and puts Lady Bevell on the ground. A fight ensues, where Mary and Toni take each other apart. Dean gets out of his cuffs and gets the gun, but Lady Bevell does some blood magic and Mary starts choking. Dean knocks Toni out, and Mary’s fine. They are about to release Sam when Mick enters with Castiel. Mick apologizes for Bevell’s behavior, and promises that she’ll face consequences in London. He explains that they want to work with them. He promises that he is sincere, since he could have easily taken them prisoner, but he’s unarmed and he let Castiel in. He takes Toni Bevell and leaves his number, asking them to call him when they’ve cooled down.

Back at the Bunker, the Winchesters discuss the Men of Letters over takeout. Mary got Dean pie, which he eats with all the gusto of a starving five year old. Later that evening, Sam knocks on Mary’s door, and brings her a cup of tea. He tells her that if she needs to talk, he’s there and has some experience coming back and not feeling like he fits. She tells him she wants to know all the mother stuff she missed out on. Sam also gives Mary John's Journal. When Mary asks about getting out of hunting, Sam replies that "this is my family. My family hunts. It’s what we do." He also tells her that having her there fills in a big blank in his life.

Mick and Lady Bevell drive toward the airport. He tells her that the home office wanted her to work with the Winchesters, not torture them. She protests that they must be eliminated, because the Winchesters are no better than the monsters they hunt. Mick tells her he’s already sent for Mr. Ketch.

In London, a man with a cross tattoo on his hands is packing an armory and leaving a room.

Castiel: I think I may have found Sam's location. It's a farm, it appears empty. But it was rented two weeks ago to a woman with an English accent.

Dean: Did you have a look inside?Castiel: No. No, it's powerfully warded.Dean: Powerfully warded? Okay, see, buddy, that was your headline right there.

Castiel: ...Are we still discussing the same thing?

Dean: Why don't I take this one solo, okay? We just, we don't know what we're walking into here.Mary: We never know. We're hunters.

Dean: You know when you died, it changed Dad. I mean he was hell-bent on finding out what happened. The hunter life, it just took him over. I guess I was the same. But, Sammy-- Sammy, he was different. He wanted out. He went to school, he went to Stanford.

Mary: Sam had a chance to get out, and he came back?

Dean: When Dad disappeared, Sam and I looked around and something became very clear. The only thing we had in this world -- the only thing, aside from this car -- was each other.

Rowena: I can't believe I'm once again down some dank hole seeking the Devil. When does it end? It's exactly why I'm retiring to Boca Raton. With Ben.

Lady Bevell: Anything to add?Dean: No. No, I just came by for some tea and a beating.

Mary: Get away from my boys.Sam: Mom?

Mary: Well, we should call the internet and find out as much as we can about these people. Did I say that right?

Dean: So close.

Sam: Yeah, it was close.

Sam: If you ever wanna talk. I know what it's like to come back and not feel like you really fit.

Mary: I just have so much about you boys to catch up on. Mother stuff. You know, first tooth, first crush.Sam: Yeah.Mary: I just have a lot of blanks to fill in.Sam: Right, uh... Dad's journal. His writing, his words. Helped me fill in some blanks, answer some questions I didn't know I had. And you know, it-- it-- it keeps him with us. Sort of.Mary: Thank you.Sam: GoodnightMary: Dean said you got out of hunting.Sam: Yeah.Mary: And yet here you are.

Sam: Well, this is my family. My family hunts, you know? It's is what we do. Mom, for me... Just, um... having you here... fills in the biggest blank.

Trivia & References

"Mamma Mia" is the name of a 1970s hit song from the Swedish pop group ABBA. It is also the name of a musical featuring their songs.

In the '90s Brit Pop group The Spice Girls, each of the members had a nickname - Posh Spice, Scary Spice, Sporty Spice and Baby Spice.

Dean: Your meatloaf was amazing.

Mary: Came from the Piggly Wiggly. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Piggly Wiggly is a chain of supermarkets in the Southern and Midwestern region of the United States.

Lucifer: You know, I gotta say Rowena. I took one look at you and all I wanted was to snap your miserable neck again and keep it snapped this time. But I think I've decided against it.

Rowena: You won't regret it, sir. I am done with all this. I'll stay far, far away, sipping martinis with Republicans at my tennis club.Lucifer: You're missing my point. A witch as gifted as yourself, with access to the Book of the Damned to boot, would be much more valuable as a prisoner.Rowena: What?Lucifer: How's that saying go? Mm. Friends close... enemies closer.

The saying comes from the 1974 movie, The Godfather Part II. It is Michael Corleone who says: "My father taught me many things here — he taught me in this room. He taught me — keep your friends close but your enemies closer."

Mary: Dean. You won't have to be. I can handle myself. Okay? All right, good talk.

"Good talk" is a phrase used often by characters in the show, especially Dean who uses it to shut down any conversations he doesn't like. Much like how Mary used it on him.

When Lucifer possesses Vince Vincente, he takes the guise of Vince's dead partner Jen, and saying he is an angel and promising that if Vince invites him in, they will be together. In the teaser for 12.03 The Foundry, she also says together they can help heal his sister, a line not heard in this episode.

As established in 11.10 The Devil in the Details, due to Lucifer being released from the Cage with Book of the Damned magic, as long as his essence is in a vessel, he will be anchored, and thus unable to be imprisoned again through spellwork. He can't be sent back to the Cage via the method used in 5.22 Swan Song because the Winchesters no longer have all four of the Horsemen's rings to open a portal.

The reason Dean and Mary are at the Bunker, rather than searching for Sam with Castiel, was explained in the previous episode when Dean tells Mary they need to go back to the Bunker to put a trace on Ms. Watt's cell phone.

The photo Mary looks at in John's Journal is the same one of the hunters at Camp Chitaqua from 5.04 The End. Its appearance here is curious given that Camp Chitaqua and the photo existed in a reality constructed by Zachariah. The photo does not exist in the "real world" unless Dean somehow bought it back with him.

Comparison of the Camp Chitaqua picture in 12.02 Mamma Mia (left) and 5.04 The End (right).